The Forest of Monsters
by serpentmaster13
Summary: When the princesses notice their sweethearts go missing routinely, they decide to follow the pair into a huge remote forest full of monsters. But will they be prepared for what they will find once they enter; or the consequences of their exiting the forest of monsters. Rated T for violence
1. Chapter 1

**My first upload! Yay!**

**Disclaimer: Mario, Luigi, Daisy, and Peach are owned by Nintendo.**

Now to the Story:

The Forest of Monsters

Peach and Daisy stared at the grand facade of the forest that loomed in front of them. Peach gulped nervously.

"Are you sure they went in here?" She asked Daisy timidly.

"Yep." Daisy replied with no fear in her voice. She marched into the forest. Despite it being late at night, the forest kept the two princesses wide awake and alert. They were following their boyfriends.

The two female royals had recently taken notice that sometimes, at night, neither Mario or Luigi was to be found in the castle, at Toad Town, or at their own house. Polterpup and E. Gadd had searched all of Evershade Valley and a little bit beyond; as well as in all of the many houses Luigi owned and explored. Toadsworth was stationed at Mushroom Castle, and Toad was in Toad Town, but no one had found the two brothers anywhere. This had occurred for a few nights, scattered on the calendar here and there. Then a pattern began to emerge when more and more absent dates were gathered. The night of the full moon and the two nights adjacent to it, the Mario bros had gone. Same thing with the new moon. The two were also gone the day before the moon phase was exactly between half full and full, the milky whiteness on the right side of the celestial sphere. When they looked up the phase, it was listed as the waxing gibbous. The Bros were also gone the night after the waning gibbous, and the night before the waning crescent reached it's most recognizable appearance; exactly between empty and half full.

Daisy and Peach had found the pattern when recording the last set of data about the waning crescent for the third time, predicting the next absence on the three nights of the new moon, and they were right. The Mario bros had gone, and Daisy volunteered to follow them with Polterpup by her side. The princess of Sarasaland had gotten as far as the forest undetected, but by the time she arrived, night was falling. Daisy had decided not to risk the mission at night, or at least that night. She would have been in total darkness with no moonlight at all. Also, despite his training to remain stable without the help of the Dark Moon, Polterpup would not enter the forest. Daisy and Peach had decided to wait for the next phase to go, but on the waxing crescent, Daisy had gotten sick. Peach did not want to go alone, yet only Daisy and Polterpup knew where the forest was. Also, the waxing crescent moon would provide minimal light. The pair of princesses decided to wait for the next night the bros were absent to go.

Now the couple entered the forest under the waxing gibbous moon, feeling the atmosphere immediately seem to change. They followed a well-worn path as creatures growls from other parts of the forest echoed around the trees.

A ways into the trek, huge thing leaped out onto the trail. It was a huge ferret like creature, with disproportionately huge fangs; as long as Luigi was tall. Though it was huge, it would obviously be agile. The thing hissed and rose on it's hind legs. In an apple grove, it would have towered over the trees; but this was a legit forest. The smallest of it's trees were taller than the top pinnacle of Mushroom Castle. The thing pounced, but a brown blur struck first. It barreled into the giant Ferret's side, flying both things off the path and out of view of the princesses. Fierce barking could be heard, as well as hissing and growls. Daisy and Peach ran in the direction that their savior had come from, grateful they were wearing their biking jumpsuits, as their dresses would have gotten caught on the bushes as they retreated. Behind them, a significantly louder squeal rang out in the night. A triumphant howl came from the same direction.

It was of little comfort to the duo. All it meant was a monster that was smaller, but stronger than the giant ferret was done with it's not-such-a-challenging ordeal. Whatever it was, it was now on the trail for a less challenging ordeal. Two little ladies lost in the woods would make a great meal, wouldn't it?

Peach and Daisy heard footfalls behind them. They sped up to lose their pursuer, but it was no use. Peach felt something touch her shoulder and suppressed a scream. When she realized it was just a clean white glove, Peach tuned and hugged the familiar face.

"Mario!" She cried in joy.

"Hey, what are you two doing here?" He asked. Neither princes responded. Both where taking in Mario himself. He had acquired furry triangle shaped ears, but they replaced his normal ones instead of being on top of his head and an addition to the norm. Peach pushed away her questions. Mario had furry ears quite a lot. The only thing was, when he looked mostly human and didn't have a suit on, he usually had two sets, and not one replacing the other. The one other prevalent thing that was alarming about Mario's appearance, was his eyes were red. Normally this wouldn't bother Peach or Daisy because Mario's eye's changed color sometimes, it was a fact. The three colors; red, blue, and no color (just large black pupils that doubled as irises), switched, though they they tended to be blue most often. The thing that was alarming was they were _glowing_ red. Mario didn't seem to mind, or notice.

"Come on," he said, "you guys are farther in than out. You might want to wait out the night at the castle with us.".

Mario headed off into the forest with no fear of the shadows whatsoever. After sharing a brief glance, the princess followed him.

They had entered a circular clearing with a diameter of a sixteen wheeler when Mario tensed suddenly.

Daisy screamed with surprise, fear, and exhilaration as she was suddenly snatched into the air.


	2. Chapter 2

**from now on I only continue posting if I get at least 3 new reviews form three different reviewers. This is to make sure that someone cares about this story, otherwise why write it?**

**Disclaimer: Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy are owned by Nintendo**

* * *

Daisy marveled at the sheer mass of the forest as she got a bird's eye view. The thing was absolutely colossal, at the very least four times the Mushroom Kingdom, the Dark Lands, and the Beanbean kingdom combined, and that was the part she could _see._ The ocean of green stretched as far as the eyes could see. The clearing that Daisy had been lifted from was about three fourths from the way to the edge of the trees and to a huge castle. Daisy was getting vertigo, so she decided to behold her captor and look up as opposed to down.

It was a wretched monster that seemed to be part vulture part devil/demon-thing. It seemed to be ambi-petal, with huge opposable thumbs on it's talons and gristly feathered wings sprouting from it's back. Daisy looked away in disgust at it's bald vulture like head to see another shape hurtling through the dark sky toward them, coming from the castle.

It's huge black bat wings and glowing purple eyes gleamed as the shape hurtled toward Daisy and her assaulter. Daisy looked once again at her captor to see how it would react. She was startled as the monster was attacked. Fangs that shined inn the light of the waxing gibbus above pierced the neck of Daisy's captor, as the attacker clamped down with all it's might. Daisy quickly averted her eyes, getting a glance of the wicked sharp claws on the bat winged attacker's... hands?

It all took place in less than a second, at the end of which Daisy was thrown high in the air; the force of the bite causing a see-saw effect with the demon's body as it released it's no-longer-prey. Daisy knew soon she would be at the mercy of gravity, and then at the mercy of a purple-eyed, bat winged, fanged, clawed, monster. Daisy decided to enjoy the fall while it lasted. Gravity took her, and Daisy closed her eyes. It reminded of the time she went skydiving on Wa-hu Island. This fall, however, was much more exhilarating, because at it's end was death. Yet Daisy found that her death was not to be at that moment. Her fall stopped suddenly when she landed in someone's arms.

"Glad I caught you." Said a voice.

Daisy opened her eyes. She was surprised to find her boyfriend staring back at her. Of course she was surprised to see him; not only because he was simply here, holding her bridal style in mid air like it was no biggie, but also how he looked.

His ears where enlarged and pointed like Link's, only bigger. His normally blue, green, or black eyes glowed blood red; not to mention his canines where at least three times, maybe four times as long as they were supposed to be. His sharp nails were somehow not digging in to Daisy's skin. Huge bat wings buffeted the air behind him, keeping the couple aloft with a soft bobbing motion. Luigi's wingspan was huge; each wing was at least three times his arm span from fingertip to fingertip.

Luigi held Daisy there for a moment, just the two of them hovering in mid air, then they descended into the small clearing Daisy had been taken from. The body of her kidnapper lay in the grass, a rather large wolf was sniffing at it curiously. Peach stood next to the corpse, her mouth agape at Luigi, not even noticing or caring about the canine.

Luigi landed in the center of the clearing, put Daisy down gently, and folded his wings into his back. How those huge flappers fit neatly into his back without ripping his shirt at all was way beyond Daisy. His fangs shrunk some as well, but they were still two time as long as normal canines. His nails became regular, and his ears got regular sized, but remained pointed. He almost looked normal again, if you could ignore his eyes, ears, and teeth. Peach marched over to the newly regroundeds.

"Luigi!?" She exclaimed. " What happened to you? You had these wings, and these teeth, and, and..."

"Calm down, he's dormant now," the wolf called from the dead monster, his voice a kind of a growl-mixed speech.

Peach screamed and backed up into Luigi.

"Calm down, it's just Mario!" Luigi told her.

Peach stopped screaming. "Oh" She said sheepishly. "Well, I just wasn't expecting that, that's all."

She turned to Luigi "What happened to your wings and teeth and claws?" She asked.

"They retreat when I'm dormant." He explained, still leaving a lot questions unanswered about the dormant thingy.

Daisy looked at him quizzically. "What about your eyes?" She asked. "They were purple before."

"That's because he's sucked tonight where as he hadn't before." Mario barked, still examining the corpse. "I might even say he's full, if it wasn't impossible for him to be."

Mario looked up from the hole his teeth had ripped into the belly of the corpse. Daisy was surprised that it had no blood on it. Dry pinkish flecks like some sort of super sized dandruff floated out from the belly around Mario, making the image seem almost mystical.

"You sucked it dry, in three eighths of a millisecond." The lycan informed his brother. "In the process, you also snapped it's neck and crushed it's windpipe." he continued, laying a claw on the monster's neck where two puncture wounds ruptured the skin. Each had a three centimeter diameter, but went all the way through the neck, which had been compacted by powerful jaws. The area around the holes had been constricted to the size of Daisy's bicep, although the rest of the neck could encompass her whole head.

"Wow." Peach remarked in a small voice..

"Did you,... do that?" Daisy asked, pointing first to Luigi, then to the mangled neck.

Luigi didn't respond. He was just as shocked. Mario answered for his brother instead.

"He most definitely did do that, beat his record too. Three fourths of a millisecond on a mouse, and the regular kind not the gargantuan kind. This thing, is much larger than your average household rodent. This is what we call a follicle-less, honey badger/vulture thing. The greasy demon for short. I thought it would be a harder kill for Luigi to make, as it's impervious to his venom, but he dealt with it just fine. These are nasty not-so-little creatures. Are you okay?"

He looked up at Daisy, concerned.

Daisy didn't respond right a way, trying to absorb what he had just said, as well as the fact that an animal was talking to her.

"Are you okay?" Mario repeated.

"Yes, I'm fine!" She assured him.

"Good." He growled, satisfied. "We're good at fighting off the monsters in here, but curing the wounds is a whole different story."

"Wait,... did you say his venom?" Peach asked incredulously.


	3. Chapter 3

**It has occurred to me to me that If I want any one to review, I have to earn the attention. I'm uploading this chapter in spite of my previous statement because I want to stop delaying with this peremptory gobbldey gook and get on with the dang story. One more chapter after this one, and then we get real.**

**It has also occored to me to use manners, so I will say this: ****_please_**** review, it's killing me to get no feed back what so ever.**

**Disclaimer: Mario Luigi, Peach and Daisy are owned by Nintendo**

* * *

They walked and talked. A few monsters attacked on the way, but the party didn't let it bother them. Sometimes just a growl and a look from Mario was enough. On occasion, one stubborn giganticipuss, echidniclossal or other monster would attack for real, on which case they would die. The puss's large beaver tail and duck beak, each the size of a wild wing race car, where hard to get past and deadly. Luigi had to clear out. His wings, although not at all fragile, would only hold him back. Although the trees here were farther apart than in a regular forest, which allowed the truly huge predators to get through, Luigi's wingspan was greater than the distance between the trees. However, Mario was fast and deadlier than the massive monotreme. After weaving around the tail and bill with incredible grace, he saw an opening and went for it. After landing quickly on it's bill, Mario rolled onto the ground and then under the monster's belly, where it couldn't see him. The puss stopped attacking and became very still, looking for his opponent. Mario slashed the underbelly viciously, creating deep cuts and drenching himself in the blood of the combatant. He had to quickly roll out again before the monster collapsed on top of him.

"Well, what's next?" He asked, standing up on his two hind legs. His claws dug into the ground to make deeper and more detailed foot prints than before.

"You need to wash up." Luigi said, trying not to barf. "There's a stream over that way." He directed, pointing.

Mario raced off, on all fours. The other three followed him. They found him all clean, and mostly dry, with his snout poking in a large bundle of weeds beside a river bed.

"Wow." Daisy remarked in wonder.

The river Mario had washed off in was absolutely huge and very deep, three times the volume of Peach's Castle was held in a section no longer than the the giganticipuss was.

"Look at this." Mario said, briefly bringing his snout up from the bundle of elephant grass. Inside, seven large eggs were nestled in a nest of the large grass.

"She was just protecting her nest." Daisy said forlornly.

"This is horrible!" Peach cried. "Now they won't have a mother."

"Don't worry," Mario assured her. "They don't really need their mother, that's not exactly how giganticipusses function."

He backed out from the elephant grass nest and continued to trot toward wherever the two were taking them.

It was a little while before they reached the castle, which was apparently where Mario and Luigi were taking the princesses. They had followed the river until a smaller one split off of the absolutely huge one. A little further down river, the huge structure was literally placed on the river.

"Make yourself at home." Luigi said when they entered. "Our cutlery doesn't sing or dance, but it's a great place to explore. If you're lucky, there may be otterflies around."

"Otterflies?" Peach asked.

"They're otters with owl wings, and they're really creepy." Mario supplied.

"They're not creepy," Luigi argued, "They're adorable."

"But they can turn their head around all the way."

"But they're so cute and funny."

"And they throw up their food. Every sensible animal will poop it out the other side, not force disgusting germs up there mouth." Mario gagged, his tongue lolling out of his own mouth.

"Don't be so hypocritical. You will eat whatever you catch raw out in the woods, isn't that somewhat unsanitary? Huh bro?"

"Animals do that all the time. What they don't do all the time is eject out of their mouth stuff that their stomach and intestinal juices are on." he said, baring his teeth threateningly.

"But that's why they eject them, they can't digest it. If-"

"WILL YOU TWO QUIT THAT BICKERING!" Daisy growled. Luigi shrunk back right away. Mario's tail shot between his legs as he fell back down to all fours.

"Whatever," he growled. "You'll agree with me when you see them."

* * *

"Oh wow!" Peach said in delight. She had found the kitchen, with lots of otterflies flitting about. One landed on the island and made a big show of licking it's paw. It's wings were flared dramatically, simply demanding attention.

"Look at you, you little cutie!" Peach cooed, planting her elbows on the island and resting her head in her hands.

"Bleck." Mario grumbled reluctant to enter the kitchen.

"Jees Rio, don't be such a scared-y-cat." Daisy teased.

"I'm not scared." Mario proclaimed, though his tail tightly hugging his belly told a different story. "And I'm not a cat… at the moment."

"I told you you're the only one who would ever think these things to be creepy." Luigi said triumphantly. Mario let out a low growl and backed out of the kitchen. He turned tail and trotted elsewhere.

"Is he always that grumpy as a wolf?" Daisy asked.

"Nah," Luigi replied. "He just doesn't like being' wrong, especially when I'm right, especially about the otterflies."

"Who seem to have taken over your kitchen," Daisy observed. "and Peach."

Luigi took in the scene before them again, Peach had a whole mess of otterflies around her, all of them chattering excitably. They adorned not only Peach, but the whole kitchen. There were some swimming in the sink, playing tag in the cupboards, or fencing with knives. Luigi's sharp eras could even pick up shrill high chirps coming from the dishwasher, the otterfly equivalent of singing in the shower.

"Yeah, they pretty much have." He admitted. "They came up from the river," he said, pointing to a structure over a hole in the island, next to the sink.

"It's an indoor well." Luigi explained. "It runs straight down to the river underneath the castle. It used to have a cover, but Mario ripped it off in frustration: biggest mistake of his night-life yet. It let in these fellows, Mario hasn't set paw in the kitchen since."

"What are those ones doing?" Daisy said, pointing to a wet otterfly who was turning on the electric stove.

"Hum, I don't know." Luigi admitted. Daisy was about to ask if they should stop the critters, when Luigi chattered something in a really high-pitched voice.

The otterfly that had turned on the stove dial stepped on to the element and chattered something back at Luigi, pointing with a paw to a TV that was switched off. It stood on it's hind legs and spread It's wings majestically, It's front paws planted at their corresponding hips before falling back onto the element with it's wings and paws spread-eagle.

"Oh boy, that's not going to end well." Luigi grumbled.

"What's it doing?" Daisy asked.

"It's using the electric stove as a tanning bed to turn its fur black so it can become Bat Man, as seen on TV." He replied.

"You can talk to them?" Peach asked, astounded.

Luigi shrugged. "More or less."

Peach looked amazed, and then suddenly discussed, her face contorted into a cringe.

"What's that smell?"

"That would be burning fur." Luigi answered.

Peach made even more of a face.

"I'm gonna go catch up with Mario." she wheezed.

"We're right behind you." Daisy coughed.


End file.
